The Nine Eternal Colours
by QuoteMyFoot
Summary: The demons are eternal and they are everywhere. Being trapped inside a human does not change much. Gold, White, Blue, Brown, Silver, Clarity, Yellow, Purple, Red... life's endless colour wheel. Oneshot; not quite AU.


The Ichibi is gold.

He is a glittering, shining promise of joy, if only you could snatch it. He is desire, he is addiction, he is craving; he is _not enough._ He will never be enough. He is greed; he is wanting just that little bit more despite what you already have. He is chasing a desperate fantasy. He is ignoring failure at your own peril.

He laughs and beckons and they follow him; believe his empty words.

Because what are promises?

The Ichibi will never be enough. He is gold. He is the mistaking of want for need. They want more, always more. In some ways, he thinks, he is the same. As humans, that is. Humans are the most fun to play with, because they are so easy to lead towards hope. He drags it away from them like teasing a cat; leaving it just out of reach.

_Mother, what is love? Am I loved?_

_Mother, I'll give you their blood. All of it. I'll give it to you._

_I need to protect them. All of them. Shukaku! Give me power!_

They will always go just that little bit further.

He finds it amusing to toy with the humans. It is like an addiction. He thinks that he has pushed this one as far as it can go... but no, it somehow manages to crawl a few more inches. Humans are surprisingly tough creatures, and yet so fragile. Offer them something they lack and they will do anything to get it.

The Ichibi is gold. He is a false promise of joy and impossible to sate. And he is much amused.

* * *

The Nibi is white.

She is empty but she is not; a blank canvas waited to be showered by colour. But mixing anything with white will change the colour. She is soothing, she is smothering; she is losing control and spiralling deeper into the space between colours.

She does not have to speak. She just shows herself, a glimpse, and they will follow her.

They will all follow her in time.

The Nibi is soothing and she is welcoming. She is nothing. She is everything. She is hope and she is death. Everyone will come to her in time. She does not have to chase them, though sometimes they run to her. She accepts them all the same.

_I am a weapon. That is all._

_I am a weapon. But does a weapon think? Does it feel?_

_I am not a weapon. I am Yugito. And I will not die here!_

Yugito slips into the white.

She accepts her gently, welcoming the splash of brightness. There have been many colours here, but Yugito's is unique and it is strong. The white is powerful and seems to exist everywhere, and Nibi is lonely. But sometimes like Yugito a splash of colour will remain, and she will be happy for a time.

The Nibi is white. Even Yugito's colours fade in time. White is eternal. White does not rot.

* * *

The Sanbi is blue.

He is deep, he is the beyond; he is that which cannot be fathomed. He is the part of everything that exists but is not understood. He is hiding. He is seeking. He is both and he is neither. He is what cannot be sought and what cannot hide.

He is strangeness and familiarity. He is primal and he is instinct. He is the inexplicable.

He does not want to be explained.

The Sanbi is the part of everything that exists but is not understood. He is feared but no one knows why. Not even he knows why. Maybe he is fear, or maybe fear is something deeper than even he. He does not know; he does not need to know. To be explained is to be seen and ignored.

_I'm not just a jinchuuriki! They won't be able to ignore me!_

_I'll do it. With Tobi's help, they'll have to look before they turn away like that._

_What is he? Madara..._

Humans seek to explain many things.

They always desire an explanation. It is what makes them human. The tree does not seek to understand its leaves, the bird does not seek to understand his song, but humans are ever curious. He worries, sometimes, that one day instinct will not be enough to keep them from his depths. Some have tried already.

The Sanbi is blue. Go deeper and you will find black.

* * *

The Yonbi is brown.

He is patience. He is release. He is something new. He is the other choice; he is changing your mind. He is the anticipation of something you have been preparing for. He is calm, acceptance. He is the inevitable, but also the wait. He is the excitement bubbling just beneath the surface; the placid exterior.

He is something sudden, spur-of-the-moment, and the impulsiveness behind it.

He is reasoning; he is deciding.

The Yonbi is patience. He can wait a millennia, or 50 years under human skin. To him, the time passes, but it does not matter that the time passes. Time is untouchable, demon or not. At the end of his wait, something will happen. It is not important what it is. It will happen. He is the inevitable.

_Why won't Mother tell me why they glare? I'm a ninja! Why do I have to wait?_

_This is the last decision Iwa forces on me: I am leaving._

_I could run, or I could fight. But I have tried running. This time, I am fighting._

Roshi's decision was incorrect.

It does not matter. Roshi made a choice. It was foolish but not impulsive. Time passes. People age. His life would have ended anyway. Now Yonbi is held in another place. It does not matter. He is calm. He waits. Time will pass, as it always does, and something will happen, as is inevitable, and then he will make a choice. He waits patiently. He is not sure whether he will make his decision in a human heartbeat or a human lifetime.

The Yonbi is brown. It is not his place to hurry time. He will wait.

* * *

The Gobi is silver.

She is brightness. She is success. She is a feeling of happiness. She is achievement; pride in a job completed. She is luck; she is startled relief and surprised laughter. She is the feeling of being precious, and she is holding something precious. She is protection. She is safety in the arms of another.

She is love. She can be jealous, she can be wrong and she can be ugly.

She is still love.

The Gobi is a feeling of happiness. In the darkest of hearts, she can still be found. She is there with the one who swore revenge when he has blood on his hands. Blood is life, and life can be happiness whether is it created or taken. Every being has known her, and will know her, and may find her still in the white.

_Hey, Roshi... even though you're leaving, we're still friends, right?_

_No one really cares, do they? I have respect. But when I die, they'll just choose another child._

_Figures Roshi would have gone first. I guess this makes me the last host of Iwa..._

She is found in the strangest of places.

Children are like a family to her, for in almost every thing they do she can be found, and when she is forgotten she is soon remembered again. The human children do not realise the precious thing they have, but they will grow and look back and hold her moments all the closer to their heart. They will look back on good memories and smile. Good memories can bring happiness, even when the humans are paling.

The Gobi is silver, but she feels red when her children are taken from her.

* * *

The Rokubi is colourless.

He is being shown something else. He is deception. He is not knowing and refusing to know. He is sowing confusion; he is the breeding of a misunderstanding. He is fake, but he convinces the world that he is real. He is tricks and lies, and he is tugging strings to create a false picture.

He is ignorance; he is the exploitation of it. He is creating doubt. He is causing wonder.

How much of that is lies?

The Rokubi is the breeding of a misunderstanding. When a human is flustered he has been there and told a lie. The lie varies. So does he. His very image is a trick; is he this or is he not? Under human skin he can be many different things, but that is nothing to what he can truly be.

_Yagura thinks I'm on his side. I'll let him think that._

_I wear no emblem of Kiri because I am not of Kiri. This is where I happen to live._

_Harness the power of the jinchuuriki? Ha. You're just kidding yourself..._

Often he fools himself, too.

Trickery is not as easy as it seems. That is its very nature. True tricksters rarely exist, because to fool others you often have to believe your own lies. He knows this better than any human. To be a trickster is to be as false as your own lies; to create complete deception it must first deceive your own eyes. No human is a true master of tricks, because they cannot be rid of their colour.

The Rokubi is colourless. He used to have a colour. Or did he?

* * *

The Nanabi is yellow.

She is adrenalin. She is the heady feeling of spiralling to new heights. She is investigation; she is the thrill of the hunt but not the thrill of the catch. She is jumping in to adventure. She is energy. She seeking out something new; she is the feeling of discovering something familiar under new light.

She is adventure and she is the adventurer. She is always filled with wonder; she is never pausing.

Anything can be new if you want it to.

The Nanabi is seeking out something new. If something is the same then it is safe, and it is familiar, and she does not want either of those. Like humans, she craves excitement. In fact, Nanabi is often glad to be under the skin of another human, because everything seems new to them, and she gets to experience that through their eyes and their smell and their blood.

_I get to go out into the village? Now? Great! I haven't seen it properly yet!_

_I never had to fight a jounin before. This should be fun..._

_Hey, why is this guy blue? I wonder if he bleeds differently. Let's find out!_

Humans seem very fond of danger.

They are always curious, but somehow that curiosity almost always manages to put them in danger. She does not mind. She is adrenalin. She is danger. Still, sometimes she wonders if the humans have truly grasped that danger is not the only excitement to be found. She has been with mothers and fathers. She has been with gamblers. She has been with athletes; she has been to races and games.

The Nanabi is yellow. She never complains, because danger is fun too.

* * *

The Hachibi is purple.

He is horror. He is terror. He is the surprise you wish had been kept secret. He is grief; he is a loved one lost, he is the finding of a corpse. He is the fright of childish fears. He is the stuff that creates nightmares. He is your phobia. He is that which you recognise and fear.

He is depression. He is running out of tears; the sadness that overwhelms you.

Sometimes he chases you to the white.

The Hachibi is the finding of a corpse. He has found himself among humans more than any other species. Not because more of them die; in numbers, their deaths are very few. But to a human the discovery of any corpse is shock and horror and revulsion. A pause, at least. It can be an enemy or it can be your closest friend; it could be a face so bloated as to be unrecognisable. It doesn't matter.

_Bro? What did they say about dad? When's he coming back?_

_Samui's first kill. She's not feelin' ill. That's girl's a thrill!_

_They're out alone this time. If they drag a body back it better not be one of mine._

Death to humans is unnatural.

This strikes him as strange, as death has always been part of the natural order. All creatures die. Often, death will strike before their hearts give out, but that is part of what is natural too. He would have expected humans to understand this, as so many of them are trained to bring death themselves. Still they refuse to accept it. Instead of moving on, they grieve and sob and wish things were different. This is how things are. No one can change that.

The Hachibi is purple. Sometimes he feels saddened by what holds the humans back.

* * *

The Kyuubi is red.

He is rage. He is anger. He is the tearing apart of dreams; he is the splattering of blood and the spiteful dying breath. He is revenge. He is the power that can only be found through hatred; through utter loathing. He is giving yourself to madness.

He is genocide. He is prejudice. He is hatred running through veins like blood.

He is the desire to see blood run.

The Kyuubi is the splattering of blood and the spiteful dying breath. He is there in the death throes. He is in the fatal injury inflicted when it shouldn't be possible. He is in the futile struggle to fight back when life has given up. In humans he recognises that stubborn desire to even the score; the power that drives them beyond the norm.

_I'm not going to let you hurt Iruka anymore, you jerk!_

_I won't let you leave, even if I have to beat you within an inch of your life!_

_I don't care what Pain says. I'll find some way to create peace!_

Sometimes, he uses that to his advantage.

He finds being under human skin a trial that has him gnashing his teeth and pacing. Humans are capable of rage, yes, but this one just won't allow himself to fully give into it! And everything else... perhaps he would be satisfied if rage is all this human felt, but no - it takes all of his strength to push his _cage_ into anger deep enough to let him out.

The Kyuubi is red. Now he rages and growls, because he wants to be free.

* * *

**A/N:** Inspired by, but not based on, Gleam's fic "He Had No Fingers", which I definitely recommend if you are a fan of horror. One of the creepiest stories I have read on the internet - at all, even.

Where did this come from? I'm honestly not sure. Several of these will seem slightly out of place, probably - Hachibi doesn't sound much like the Hachibi Kirabi was talking to, for example. I figure that whilst their "colours" (or themes) make up a majority of who they are, there are other "colours" (themes, feelings) in there too. Hence the Gobi's red.

I've actually probably thought about this more than any of my other fanfics. A lot of this was based on imagery rather than characters and story, which I'm not really used to... how do you think I did?

Last of all in this short rant, does anyone else feel cheated by the lack of other jinchuuriki? Gaara and Kirabi are awesome and all, but I wish we could have met the others, too. I don't know why, but I have taken a particular liking to the Gobi's jinchuuriki, Han. (He's the guy in the red armour.) Why? I don't know! He just seems really cool. But then again, I have nothing to base this off, so it may just be my image of him. But come on, that armour _is_ pretty awesome.

Okay I'm done. Reveiws are welcomed! Which bits were your favourite? Anything you didn't understand? I'd love to know!


End file.
